Personal bias in reviews, or I saw Beasts of the Southern Wild and did not enjoy it for possibly dubious reasons

Beasts of the Southern Wild has been getting a lot of critical praise ever since it debuted at Sundance back in January. The mix of two powerful performances from non-actors, the magical realism, and the setting, a poor community in Louisiana near-destroyed by an epic storm, have blown away many, many people. I am not one of them.

I’m not completely bewildered by the praise; Quvenzhane Wallis does very well as the main character, a young girl named Hushpuppy, and I was shocked to find out that the man player her father, Dwight Henry, had never acted before this film. Wallis maintains the grim stoicism that her father instills in her with childlike fantasies (this is where the magical realism comes in). Henry is menacing, cruel, charming, and heartbreaking, and I really cannot emphasize how good he is. Their community, The Bathtub, is expertly constructed, throwing the viewer into what is, for most of us, a completely alien world. There is definitely a lot to like in this film.

But I think it’s a clumsy film, and to be honest, I’m a bit uncomfortable with some of the reasons why it’s being praised. There’s a lot of praise for the cinematography, but I think that’s where I started having issues. There are amazing shots, but there’s also some completely unnecessary shakycam, the type that looks less like a style choice and more like just plain unsteadiness. There are also plenty of shots early on with distracting focus racking; I know this is super bitchy to say, but it made me feel like the focus puller had a fever and was just off his game or something. These seem like nitpicks (and they might be), but it’s the sort of thing that really takes me out of a movie, especially one that’s lauded for its imagery.

Even ignoring the cinematographical errors, I felt the metaphors in the film were extremely heavy handed. Miss Bathsheeba, Hushpuppy’s teacher, tells her students about the harsh realities of the world; nature considers everyone to be a piece of meat, and it’s an eat or be eaten situation. She tells the children about the ancient aurochs, which for the rest of the film is a visual metaphor for the flooding of The Bathtub, and possibly for climate change in general. The aurochs (which are actually the savage precursor to domesticated bovine, but are represented here as giant warthog-type creatures), are where the magical realism comes in, made into reality by Hushpuppy, but I felt like it was pretty clumsy. I don’t think I’m a huge fan of magical realism in general, but as a metaphor they felt as subtle as a bull running through a china shop, and their last scene, where they burst into actual reality, interrupt an extremely powerful moment between Hushpuppy and her father. As symbolism, it’s obvious, but still stunning imagery. As a part of magical realism, I felt it almost cheapened its effect.

But what really bothers me is something that I’m not sure I should be bothered by. The film shows this impoverished community as a jovial community who are more in touch with nature and myth than the technology and industry on the other side of the levee. They refuse to evacuate both before the storm and after it, when most of their houses and belongings are literally underwater, and are resentful when forced to live in a shelter. I guess my problem with this is easiest to describe if I mention what word often comes up when discussing it: soulful. There’s an obvious comparison being made here between the poor, yet lively and soulful people of The Bathtub, and the sterile, impersonal industrial world that force themselves on The Bathtub. I’ve read a review or two that suggests that the film criticizes the people on The Other Side for only caring about the impoverished when a disaster strikes, but frankly, I don’t see the problem and I don’t like the implication. (There’s also a very brief racial/cultural implication, a snippet where we see Hushpuppy being yelled at by a white shelter worker, dressed in a blue dress and with her usually wild hair pulled back. I wish they had elaborated on that, because it was the only thing that seemed like a valid complaint.)

It seems like they’re trying to say that these poorer people are somehow wiser because they’re not corrupted by money and technology and antibiotics, and I just don’t understand. Hushpuppy in particular has these monologues that paint her as an old soul in a child’s body; talking about life and the universe as if she’s seen it all. There’s a very frustrating disdain towards the outside world, and I can’t figure out if it’s genuinely problematic or if I’m just too privileged to “get it”. How can this film honestly expect me to understand why someone would resent being taken away from a waterlogged (and later barren) ruined shantytown to a place with clean clothes and actual medical treatment for an unnamed disease that kills one of the characters who refuses traditional treatment? Does that not make sense to anyone else, or am I too much of a middle-middle class technology addicted snob to appreciate The Simple Life? Do I actually have a valid issue with this film, or am I just mad that I’ve been forced to acknowledge the poor (or something similarly classist)? They’re tough questions that are kind of personal, but I feel that even when I’m writing an opinion piece, I have to maintain a certain amount of objectivity. Should I really be ragging on a movie because it goes against my personal sensibilities? Is that even okay? I just get the feeling of “Oh look at these poor folk, so happy and wise in their adversity! Shouldn’t we all be a little more spiritual?” and I think “No!” Isn’t that kind of reductive of the actual problems of being poor, or glorifying the The Simple Life while ignoring the fact that the characters in this movie never chose that life; it’s the cards they were dealt? Or am I just overreacting because I really hate the sort of “technology is turning us into beep boop computer zombies and we’re losing social skills and the human element” line of thinking?

I really have absolutely no idea, and it’s really frustrating me.